Sorted by Commenter - Ethics - State of California

No. Commenter Position 1
Comment
on Behalf
of Group?
Rule 1.5 Fees for Legal Services.
[Sorted by Commenter]
Rule
Paragraph
Comment RRC Response
context of an injunction, jeopardy assessment
or forfeiture. It may lead to substantial
problems in bankruptcy, tax, collections,
criminal, family law, and other matters in
which both flat fees arrangements, and
injunctions, assessments and/or forfeitures,
are commonplace. The reason for this is that
persons or entities with a claim against a
client will seek to seize and forfeit a client’s
potential interest in obtaining a refund based
on the client’s possible right to “be entitled to
a refund of a portion of the fee.” How would a
creditor of the client know whether the agreed
upon services were or were not provided?
This proposal has no counterpart in the ABA
Model Rules. Thus, it does not advance the
intended goal of national uniformity that is
among the purposes for revising California’s
existing rules of professional conduct.
Finally, PREC is aware that some
practitioners have expressed concern that this
provision was presented to the State Bar
Board of Governors without the prior public
comment that is required by State Bar Rule
1.10. If there has been a failure to comply
with any procedural rule, PREC believes that
the Rules Revision commission should
consider recommending necessary corrective
The proposal was issued for a 90-day public
comment period posted on the State Bar website
and was also the subject of a public hearing in
Sacramento that was noticed by several methods,
including: a posting at the State Bar website;
public notices in the Daily Journal, the Daily
Recorder, and the Sacramento Bee; e-mail
notifications to approximately 14,000 interested
persons; and a press release to the media.
RRC - 4-200 1-5 - Public Comment Chart - By Commenter - XDFT1.1 (5-26-10) doc.doc Page 25 of 28 Printed: 5/26/2010
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